In 1981, I was a sophomore in high school, and I decided to be a teacher. In 1988, I was in front of middle school classroom filled with science students. I still have the observations in which my department head and principal attested to the quality of my interactions with students. My wife still reminds Read More
Category: Teachers
Instructional Engineering versus Sociocultural Instruction Design
Educational researchers Scott Garbiner, Cary Aplin, and Gitanjali Ponnappa-Brenner (2007) contrast engineering instruction for well-defined and measurable outcomes with designing instruction for sociocultural environments. Those who engineer instruction seek plans that lead students to meet goals (alternatively they select prescribed instruction plans that are intended to produce the desired outcome), and if the goal is Read More
Embrace Social Technologies
When computers arrived on the consumer market, they were tools for programming hobbyists. By the mid-1990’s consumer and educational computers came with Internet protocols and modems as standard parts. As massive numbers of users went online, the Internet was predicted to be “the infinite library.” While traditional publishers moved content online to begin creating this Read More
Watching #edtech-Using Students
“Just what does ‘good’ technology-rich teaching and learning look like?” This question has focused my attention as I recently returned to the field. There is little doubt that classroom are now filled with digital devices. For the first decades of digital teaching and learning, we yearned for the funds to make sure every students had Read More
Teachers and Red Herrings
Last week, I attended my first meeting of a user group for a particular educational platform. In my new position, I was glad to find a cohort of professional who do similar work at similar institutions, using the same software. As a newcomer to the group, I introduced myself to many attendees, gleaned what I Read More
Pedagogic Hegemony
Hegemony is an interesting word. It describes the dominance of one idea (or culture or social group) over another. Users typically adopt a critical tone when using the word; hegemony is established and maintained by imposition. Pedagogy is also an interesting word. It captures the actions taken by a teacher in a classroom, as well Read More
Timeline of Updating Teachers’ Practice
With the growing complexity of the domain of teaching and learning, it is reasonable to conclude that educators will be engaged in increasingly dynamic learning in all aspects of their domain: the content they teach, the natural phenomena surrounding human learning, and the application of technology to curriculum and instruction design. Compared to 20th century Read More
Be A Bricoleur
Claude Levi-Strauss (a French anthropologist who died in 2009 less than a month before he turned 101) introduced the term bricoleur to western thinkers to describe a “jackof- all-trades” approach to technology (and other practices). He suggested the term after observing individuals in other cultures who would explore the potential uses of various new tools Read More
What is “Good” Technology-Rich Teaching?
I’m reviewing some recent observations I have made of lessons in which technology was used for education. One teachers explained her what she sees when she walks past some classes as they use the new Chromebooks for the math program that is recommended by the school district: You go in and see all of the Read More
A Teacher’s Realization that Literacy is Changing
I have been talking with teachers about the role of technology in their courses and the changing nature of the schooling experience. This one particular English teacher is realizing the traditional curriculum is no longer sufficient for her students. She described her recent realization: We have to face the fact that things like reading are Read More